Microsoft, Symantec Team Up on Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery

Symantec's "disaster recovery as a service" offering would enable businesses to use Microsoft's Azure cloud to protect data and applications.

Microsoft and Symantec are
developing a disaster recovery service that leverages Microsofts Azure cloud
platform and Symantecs storage software to enable businesses to protect
critical data in the event of a disaster or failure at a primary data site.
The idea behind the "disaster
recovery as a service" platform is to give businesses of all sizes the
ability to recover business-critical applications and data in the event of a
disruption by leveraging the public cloud capabilities in Microsofts
Azure, according to officials with both companies.

Businesses using Symantecs Veritas
Storage Foundation High Availability for Windows, and Veritas Volume disaster
recovery software would be able to extend the solutions to the Azure cloud,
giving them another level of data protection and disaster recovery. Microsofts
cloud platform could be used as an off-premise solution in the case of a
disaster of some sortfrom storage failures to network problems to power
outagesthat would give companies quick access to their data and applications
and keep their businesses running.

The combination of technology from
Microsoft and Symantec makes sense, according to Deepak Mohan, senior vice
president of Symantecs Storage and Availability Management Group.
Windows Azure is growing rapidly as
a platform, and we are seeing many of our customers utilizing it as part of a
new delivery model for computing resources, Mohan said in a statement. With
Symantecs proven high-availability technology, and Microsofts cloud platform,
organizations can rest assured that their business will keep running in cases
of disasters and outages.
A key differentiator in Symantecs
offering, which was announced June 11 at Microsofts TechEd conference, from
similar solutions that use public clouds in their backup plans is that
Symantecs not only lets businesses save their data, but also protect their
applications, according to Symantec officials.
Businesses using Symantecs Veritas
solutions in their primary data centers would extend the solutions into the Azure
cloud, according to Symantec officials. In the event of a disaster or
outage, an automated process that replicates the data and applications to the
cloud would kick into action, keeping the business running.
Symantec officials expect the
cloud-based disaster recovery service to be operational next year, with
information regarding pricing and other issues being settled by then.
Windows Azure is designed to
provide resilience and availability, Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate vice president
of developer and platform evangelism at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Symantecs service aims to extend the built-in reliability of Windows Azure
and help customers recover on-premises applications and data with a disaster
recovery and business continuity solution utilizing complementary technology
from both Symantec and Microsoft.
The disaster recovery as a service platform
is the latest effort in availability and disaster recovery pairing Symantec and
Microsoft, according to Symantec officials. The two also partner in this area
around Microsofts Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server Hyper-V
virtualization technology.